Overdress of a woman's robe à l’anglaise
Medium:Chintz: cotton tabby, painted, mordant-dyed, resist-dyed, overpainted, glazed
Geography: Textile made in coastal southeast India for the European (English) market
Date: c. 1740-1749
Object number: 967.176.1
Credit Line: GIFT OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN NEILL MALCOLM
Gallery Location:Samuel European Galleries: Temporary Exhibition Space
DescriptionOverdress of a woman's robe à l’anglaise (with a fitted back), which can also be worn with the skirt gathered up in the back, à la polonaise. English overdress with branching floral pattern. This 1740s Indian cotton gown is delicately painted with a branching pattern of stylized leaves and flowers on the porcelain-like white ground preferred by the English. The mark of an upper-middle-class lady of taste, it was worn by a descendant of the Swettenham family, which was connected to the Staffordshire pottery industry. The flowers on this luxury gown—morning glory, fritillary, pimpernel, rose, tulip, and more—were common in English gardens. Imperial morning glory, Ipomoea nil (native to tropical and warm temperate regions), was also a familiar motif on imported Chinese porcelains.
